Connotations
by IseultLaBelle
Summary: Ange takes Chloe out for dinner and a much needed heart to heart. Oneshot. Designed as a Valentine's Day episode prologue but written before the episode airs, so totally spoiler-free!


**This might well be a bit of a mess! Half of it was written on various forms of public transport and the other half was rushed a bit because I wanted to get it up before tonight's episode (which I have just about managed!) because this one started out as my idea of how parts of the Chloe/Dom plot might go. But it's a spoiler free zone, this is purely my speculation! **

**If you're bored of this style please feel free to tell me, I know I keep writing one shots like this! Your feedback is always hugely appreciated,**

**-IseultLaBelle x **

"Right, you're going to have to help me out here, Chloe. What on earth is this and how am I supposed to eat it?"

"It's ramen, Mum. You've had it before…"

"I must have erased it from my memory."

Chloe rolls her eyes light-heartedly, smiles- the first proper smile Ange has seen from her all day. "You love me really. It's like a Japanese broth with beef and vegetables in it. And rice noodles. See, I didn't order you the tofu version. But you're totally welcome to try some of mine."

"I think I'll pass, thanks. What do I do with it? It looks like it's still alive and swimming, how am I supposed to eat it with the chopsticks?"

"They've brought you a spoon, see? And they'll give you a fork too if you confess you still don't have the patience for me to teach you how to use chopsticks."

"We're going to a nice steakhouse next time."

"You can, I'm not." Chloe pulls her chopsticks apart, loads noodles onto her spoon with annoying ease. "You can take Dom to a steakhouse."

"And let you take me on a food tour of Asia whenever we do dinner together?"

"Yep, pretty much. You'll like it, Mum, I promise. You like Chinese style beef, right? It won't be too dissimilar to that. Just in soup form. You should have got here on time if you were going to be fussy, you did tell me to order for you."

"Yep, I did. When I was still up to my elbows in an emergency appendectomy and I should have been leaving work to meet you, letting you order for me was an absolute last resort."

"I kept my promise. It's real meat."

"Love you too, sweetheart. Are you going to tell me what's wrong, then?" Ange struggles with her chopsticks and the oddly-shaped spoon she vaguely remembers battling with last time her daughter dragged her to Wagamama.

"Hmm?" Chloe feigns confusion, but all of a sudden, she's staring at her food, fidgeting awkwardly with her hands the way she's always done when she's on the lower end of the anxiety scale, biting her lip, shivering slightly, and Ange curses herself for bringing it up.

She needs to.

She knows she needs to.

Something has happened that's upset her daughter; Ange can tell.

She's been watching her all day.

It's the troubled look in her eyes, the anxiety- low level, not enough to consume her, certainly not anywhere near panic attack territory, thank god.

But Chloe isn't alright, either, whatever she might be about to try to insist.

_Something _has happened.

Ange just can't quite pinpoint what it is.

"Hey, give me some credit. I'm your mother. You haven't been yourself all day, it's my job to notice these things, isn't it? You've been distracted all week, come to that…"

"I'm fine."

"No you aren't. I know it's not awful, whatever it is, but something's wrong. I'm your mum, I can see right through you. So are you going to tell me? Hey? It might not seem so bad if you talk about it."

Chloe sighs, puts down her spoon. "It's… it's really not that big a deal, Mum. I can handle it. It's fine. I'm just being really stupid…"

"So? I'm your mum, I'm not going to judge. Nothing's stupid if it's upsetting you, Chloe. Nothing. Especially after the year you've had…"

Chloe shrugs, shutting down, wraps her hands around her green tea. "That's all over now though. I'm fine. The therapist I've been seeing thinks I've made good progress…"

"Please don't end that sentence with 'so I'm not going to carry on going,'" Ange warns her. "You've made huge progress. I think you're amazing, I'm so, so proud of you. But no one's expecting you to be completely fine all the time, sweetheart. These things don't just get better and then that's it. They take time. It's more of… I don't know. Peaks and troughs. You can be doing amazingly well, making brilliant progress and still having bad days at the same time, they aren't mutually exclusive. It's okay to…"

"It's not that." Chloe is fidgeting again now, turns her hands over around each other frantically, doesn't show even the slightest trace of awareness that she's doing it. "It's… nothing to do with Evan. Well… kind of. But only in the same way that everything that stresses me out at the moment kind of comes back to Evan eventually, you know?"

"I know," Ange agrees quietly. "I know, sweetheart. Believe me, I know. Don't do that with your hands, Chloe, you're going to work yourself up again. You're alright. Everything's alright. Do you want to go and calm down in the toilets for a minute? I'll come with you…"

Chloe shakes her head. "It's not that bad. Honestly, Mum, it's not. Just… I don't know." She reaches for her chopsticks again, fishes the beansprouts out of her ramen, still can't quite meet her mum's eyes. "I'm not going to stop going, for what it's worth. Not for a while."

"Hmm?"

"Therapy. We're… we're not just talking about Evan. It's been…" Chloe wraps her arms around her stomach protectively, winces involuntarily. "it's been… bad, since the whole… Pregnancy thing. Not awful. It's been a lot worse, I promise."

Ange's blood runs cold. "Are you trying to tell me…"

"It's not that bad, Mum. Honestly. I'm okay, it's not been awful. I've been pretty in control of it most of the time, actually. That's definite progress, right? Just… you know. Sometimes I just… want to cut." Chloe stares adamantly at her food. "But I've been working on it with my therapist. She's brilliant, she's… she wrote her PhD thesis on self-harming. She's suggested lots of techniques I hadn't heard of before that seem to be helping. I'm definitely not going to stop going to see her any time soon."

"... Okay. Okay, sweetheart, that sounds like a good decision." Ange reaches for her daughter's hand across the table, food momentarily forgotten. "So you… you think her approach is working for you? The therapist's?"

God only knows how many therapists Chloe must have seen for her self-harming over the years- and some have been hopeless, some have been beyond helpful and patient and understanding, but not one of them has ever managed to help her break the cycle completely.

That's why as much as Ange desperately wants to believe that this time it's going to work, that the SARC therapist Chloe has been referred to is going to be the one to finally make a proper, lasting difference, she just can't quite do it.

She can't relax.

She needs to be on standby, ready to scoop her daughter up and reassure her if she falls apart again, even more so after this latest revelation.

How can she do that if she allows herself to relax?

"Oh, definitely. It just... Something about it just kind of makes sense, you know? It's working for me, anyway."

"I'm so glad to hear it. That sounds really, really positive, sweetheart. But I wish you'd felt you could tell me before."

"I just didn't want to upset you," Chloe whispers. "I've caused you far too much stress over the last few months as it is…"

"No, no, no, no, Chloe, that isn't true. I don't ever want you to think like that. That's what mums are for, isn't it? Hey?"

"I'm going to be thirty this year, Mum…"

"So? You're still my baby. You're always going to be still my baby, you're never escaping that one. I always want you to tell me this kind of thing. I mean it, Chloe. I don't ever want you to feel you can't tell me when you're struggling. That's going to upset me much more."

"Dom doesn't rely on you and Carole emotionally in the same way I do. Dom doesn't rely on you and Carole combined like I…"

"Because you're two completely different people. That's all. You're completely different, and that's fine. I'm not comparing you. There's no right or wrong, I think you're perfect just as you are, sweetheart. No one's expecting you two to be the same just because you're brother and sister, least of all me. You're just different. You've just had a really awful year, one way or another. But you're going to get through it, okay? You're going to get through this bit, you're going to get your anxiety completely back under control and everything's going to be just fine. You've done it before, haven't you? You can do it again. I know you can. You're already doing absolutely brilliantly. You're in a completely different league to your mother. Not that it's a competition, everyone needs to work through it at their own pace. But I was squatting in a disused railway station, bunking off school, stealing cheap cider from corner shops and sleeping around for drugs and bunking off school six months after it happened to me. And I had no idea I was pregnant. So really, when you put it like that, I think you're pretty amazing."

"I still can't get my head around how you just didn't know. I felt… I don't know. Weird, from about week six. And I couldn't fit into any of my jeans from eight weeks, I knew then. I didn't want to accept it, but I knew."

"That's because you're ridiculously tiny, there's nowhere for it all to go. Most of us don't have that problem until much later. Well, not as much later as it was for me with you, admittedly, I took it to the other extreme with you. I think I stole some maternity jeans from New Look at what must have been about thirty-three weeks, with the benefit of hindsight, but that was it. Didn't need anything else."

"Mum, you're terrible."

"Hey, I haven't done it since! It was totally exceptional circumstances, I was too scared to go home and tell your nana after… you know. Everything with Dom. I needed some time to think. Come on, eat your tofu in pond water, or whatever it is."

"Why are you so obsessed with feeding me?"

"Because for the first two years of your life I had every medical professional we ever came into contact with tell me you were too tiny even for a preemie and with all the damage I did to you, that I clearly wasn't feeding you properly and essentially that I was a shit mother."

"Oh Mum…"

"Oddly enough, no one ever called Nana out on it when I went off to medical school and she was taking you to your appointments, and you didn't even make it onto the stupid height weight percentile curve thing until you were about fourteen. I'd ban those, if I could. I used to tell all the parents to burn them when I did my paeds rotations, they cause nothing but stress. And don't even get me started on the awful neonatologist at the Glasgow Children's Hospital who insisted the problem was my milk supply and you needed supplementing with formula, I will never forgive that man. I should have worked out you had a problem with lactose much, much sooner, only I was young and naïve, it didn't even occur to me the advice the professionals were giving me was making you even worse. Not until long after it should have, anyway. And even then, all I ever got was you were too tiny and I was obviously doing it all wrong. So eat, please. I'm going to start having flashbacks if you lose any more weight."

"I haven't lost any more weight."

"That's what you told me when you stayed at mine the other weekend, and I still don't believe you. Eat, sweetheart. You'll feel better. _And_I'll feel better, so everyone wins."

Ange breathes a sigh of relief as Chloe reaches for her chopsticks.

"Still doesn't explain how you managed to get to seven months with me without realising."

"Oh we're not still on that, are we?"

Chloe shrugs. "I just… Sorry. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to, Mum, I…"

"No, no, no, Chloe, it's okay," Ange assures her. "It's alright. I don't mind. I really, really don't, I promise…"

"No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Mum, I… I know how… awful it is… I… I don't know how you managed it for eight months, even if you didn't know you were…" Chloe's eyes fill with tears alarmingly, and Ange doesn't need to ask to know exactly what she's thinking, exactly why all of a sudden, she's so upset about this again.

"Well, I ended up with you, didn't I?" Ange reminds her daughter gently. "The whole pregnancy thing doesn't have the same… the same connotations, I guess, that it does for you. I always knew I wanted you. As soon as I realised I was pregnant, I knew I wanted you. So, so much. I never… I can completely see it, I understand how traumatic it must be for women who don't feel that way. But there was never a moment the whole time I knew I was pregnant that I didn't want you, sweetheart. I fought for you. I wouldn't have done that if I hadn't known I wanted you, would I?"

"You didn't know if I was going to look like him, though," Chloe points out faintly. "You hadn't seen me then, you couldn't have known if I was going to look like him."

_Does that mean you've always just assumed you don't look like him?_Ange ponders to herself anxiously. _Because as much as I hate that you might think I don't love you if you ever knew, I don't particularly want to have to have that conversation with you, either._

She can't lie to her.

She's her perfect little girl, except she's not so little anymore, and Ange promised herself she'd never lie to her.

She just doesn't know how she'd ever be able to break her heart and tell her the truth, either.

"I didn't need to know who you were going to look like. That really didn't bother me. I do get it, I get how you might feel like that. But I never did. Okay? I couldn't have cared less what you were going to look like, I just wanted you to be healthy."

"I couldn't have done that," Chloe confesses quietly. "I was… that was one of the main things that freaked me out whenever I tried to picture myself going through with it. What if they looked like Evan, I… I really don't think I could have… just… every time I'd look at them, I don't know how I'd… it would just be so…"

"You don't have to justify it," Ange tells her firmly. "Not to me, not to anyone else, and you certainly don't have to justify it to yourself. I mean it, Chloe, I need you to trust me on this one. It was the right decision for _you_, that's the only thing that matters. There's no reason going through with it should have been the right decision for you just because it was for me."

"I just... I don't understand, sometimes, Mum. I felt like I had… some kind of… some kind of parasite, or something, inside me, the whole time I knew. I don't know how you could stand it…"

"Because I never felt like that about you," Ange says simply. "Not once. I know it's hard, but you've got to try and get that out of your head. It was completely different for me. I didn't _know_about you until I could feel you moving, you were… I don't know. You weren't just a ball of cells by the time I realised, you were… you were _you_. I couldn't not love you, and no, I didn't know how far along I was then, but I didn't need to. I knew I wanted you, I didn't care about the rest of it."

"You didn't care if I came from _that_," Chloe finishes for her quietly, utters the words Ange simply doesn't want to have to say.

"No. No, I didn't, Chloe. That didn't even occur to me, because you aren't defined by that. I need you to trust me on this one, sweetheart. You've never done anything to hurt me. You're you. You're not accountable for anyone else's actions."

Chloe shakes her head. "Sometimes I just feel so… I don't regret it," she assures her mum quickly. "Absolutely no part of me regrets it, I couldn't have gone through with it. It would have destroyed me. But I just… sometimes I just… I feel so guilty…"

"What on earth do you have to feel guilty about?"

"That I'm not as selfless as you are," Chloe insists. "That I couldn't… You were raped and you still managed to put me first, even though I… I'm… I just couldn't have done that, Mum…"

Ange's heart sinks.

This is what she was afraid of.

Right from the moment Chloe told her she was pregnant, this was her worst fear: that Chloe would feel as though she were somehow obligated to make the same decision she made herself all those years ago- because it _was_a decision, and Ange will never stop arguing that one. (Because yes, she was well, well beyond the legal abortion limit by the time she realised she was pregnant with Chloe, but she hadn't known that, truly believed that the choice was still hers.)

She never, ever wanted Chloe to feel as though she owed the world any kind of debt for being here, as though her decisions had to be weighed against how she came into the world, as though she were anything but innocent and perfect and pure and worthy, and yet she can see it happening now before her eyes.

Chloe doesn't deserve this.

Chloe deserves to see herself as she does, as her mother, and it breaks Ange's heart that she can't seem to manage it.

"Chloe. Chloe, listen to me," she tries. "You've got that so, so wrong, sweetheart. Keeping you was the most selfish thing I've ever done, absolutely no part of that was selfless. Everyone told me how much better off you'd be if I had you adopted, at first- I was a mess, admittedly, I'd practically dropped out of school, I was using drugs, I was drunk all the time, I was chain smoking, I hadn't been home for weeks and I was playing stupid, dangerous games with men about double my age. I mean, I'd stopped doing some of those things by the time I had you, but I wasn't going to redeem myself overnight, was I? I think everyone just thought that… you know. Because of that, and then everything that happened with Dom… And then there was the whole concealed pregnancy thing. I completely get why. I hadn't exactly proven myself to be amazing mother material. I knew you might well be better off without me, I really, really did. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I loved you too much. You were just so beautiful and innocent and you were so, so cute, nothing had ever made me as happy as you did. And they weren't even letting me hold you then. I couldn't bear the thought of giving you up. I knew it might be the best thing for you, I knew I'd made a total mess of being a mother with Dom, I knew I wasn't exactly in a great position to be bringing up a baby. Far from it. But I couldn't let you go. I loved you so, so much and I couldn't bear the thought of not being your mum. You just felt right. It was a long, long way from selfless, Chloe. Believe me."

"I wouldn't have been better off without you, Mum," says Chloe adamantly, squeezes Ange's hand tightly. "Never."

"Well, I'm glad you think so. Come on. Eat your dinner. You are so, so loved, my sweet girl. You always have been. That's the last thing you ever need to worry about, I promise."

Chloe nods, picks up her cutlery again, pensive, though there's visible relief in her features. "Love you too."

"Love you more. Are you going to finish that?"

"I think so."

"Good. Are you going to stop worrying about everything now?"

"I…" Chloe glances down at her ramen again, twirls her chopsticks around the bowl, fidgeting awkwardly. "That's not actually what's bothering me. Well, it is, but that's just… the background stuff in my head, I guess."

"Seriously? She's slightly alarmed at her daughter's revelation, watching her closely again, heart sinking, protective mode, just wants to scoop her up and take her home and take all the pain away, because her baby girl is struggling, and she can't stand it. "You have all that going on in your head and that isn't even the main thing you've been worrying about? How do you ever get anything done?"

"I don't know." Chloe flushes. "I don't know, I'm just used to it."

"Sorry, Chloe. Sorry, I keep distracting you, don't I? Eat. We can talk about it when you're finished."

"I don't want any more."

"Okay. You sure?"

"I'm not a teenager anymore, Mum."

"No, I know you're not, darling. I'm sorry."

"Stop trying to police me like one, then."

"I'm not, Chloe. I'm really not, I promise. I'm just worried about you. That's my job, you'd be disappointed if I didn't."

"Mum?"

"Hmm?"

"I'm worried about Friday," Chloe confesses.

"What's happening on Friday?"

"Valentine's Day. Cam's… Cam's got plans, I think," Chloe explains, and it's as though the flood gates have opened now, as though all this time she's been desperately trying to address all the minor sources of anxiety crowding her head to avoid whatever it is that's been affecting her the most, but now she's started to unburden herself she just can't hold it all in any longer. "He's planned something for after work, and then I think he wants to…" she trails off awkwardly, glances down, bites her lip. "He won't stop hinting. You know? I keep shutting it down, I've told him I need time, but I just… I don't know. I think whatever he's planning for Valentines, that's how he's expecting it to end."

"And you don't want to?"

Chloe shudders violently at the mere suggestion of it, turns pale. "No, I… I can't, Mum. I _can't_. I honestly can't do it, every…. Every time I even try to think about doing it with someone else, I just… I can't get him out of my head, it's like I'm back there, all I can think of is how he… and what if… and I can't…"

"Alright. Alright, sweetheart, it's alright. Then you tell him. Okay?" Ange grips her daughter's hands tightly, squeezes in reassurance. "Chloe. Chloe, look at me."

Wide, haunted eyes meet hers, rabbit-in-the-headlights, trapped back inside a nightmare again, afraid.

"He'll understand," Ange promise her. "If he really cares about you, Chloe, he'll understand. I promise. He won't want to make you do anything you don't want to if he loves you. Especially after everything you've been through. He'll be sensitive about it, okay? It just hasn't occurred to him yet, that's all. I bet you anything that's all it is. Men are a bit like that, sweetheart. They're more… I don't know. Much more driven by their urges than we are, but the decent ones are brilliant when you let them be. Sometimes you just have to spell it out to them a bit before they get it, that's all. Cam will understand. You just need to talk to him, and he'll understand. You'll see. And if he doesn't, then he's a waste of space. You deserve someone who'll put you first, okay? Who cares about you first and foremost. Not the sex. If he can't do that, he doesn't deserve you, does he? And I'll deal with him. He'll know better than to try and push you into it before you're ready, sweetheart, he has to work with me all day."

"Oh Mum, don't. He's scared of you already; did you know that?"

"Is he actually? Oh my god, I'm not scary."

"Well, I know that! I know that but he's petrified, it's hilarious. He thinks one wrong move and you'll eat him alive, he keeps asking me for tips to stay in your good books."

"That's hilarious."

"Oh, no promise me you won't tell him, Mum."

"You want to deprive me of the chance to tease my junior doctor senseless?"

"Mum!"

"Okay. Okay, I'll make you a deal. I'll resist the temptation to make fun of Cameron if you promise me you'll talk to him about how you're feeling, okay? He'll understand, Chloe. I've seen the way he looks at you, he really will. It'll be fine. You just need to explain, and then he'll get it, he'll back off. You'll see. So do you promise?"

"I promise. Mum? How long… sorry. Sorry, you don't have to…"

"It's okay. It's okay, Chloe, you can ask me whatever you want, alright? We've already had this conversation, haven't we? Same survival club, and all that."

"How long after… did you…" Chloe blushes furiously.

"After what happened to me? Not until you were seven."

"Seriously?"

"Totally serious. I wouldn't lie to you about this, sweetheart. I promise. Not now, not now we're both… in the same club, so to speak. That's a nicer way of putting it, isn't it? No, I mean, I had boyfriends. That was why I had so many who only lasted five minutes when you were little, to be honest with you. I wasn't really ready, I just… I just didn't want to. I knew I couldn't do it. And I was… I was a lot younger than you are now. Boys my age just didn't get it, and I didn't want to explain. Not that I think many of them would have understood even if I had explained, to be honest. Totally governed by primal instinct when it comes to sex, guys at uni. None of my boyfriends ever got it, so that was it. They'd get tired of waiting for me to be ready and up and leave before I got there. It'll be different for you. Guys your age have caught up with us maturity-wise a bit. But yes, I didn't until you were seven. After I had you, anyway. Before I had you, I think I slept with half of Glasgow."

"Oh my god, Mum, you didn't!"

"Have I never told you this story before?"

"Umm, no! I think I'd remember!"

"Well, it was a long time ago. And I was totally off my face for most of it. I went a bit off the rails after it happened to me, you know that. Some of it was… peer pressure, I guess you could call it. Okay, so a lot of it was that. And then some of it was… I don't know. Proving to myself that I could, I guess. That he didn't take that away from me."

"My dad."

"He's not your dad, sweetheart. You're nothing to do with him. But yes. Maybe not half of Glasgow, but definitely half the drug dealers in Glasgow. That was before I knew I was pregnant with you, obviously. I would have got my shit together much, much sooner if only I'd realised. I'm ridiculously lucky we didn't both end up with HIV and god only knows what else. Don't do what I did. Okay? Proving to yourself you can go through the motions of it really, really doesn't help. Believe me. It just makes it all worse, if anything. So you do it at your own pace, alright? There's no rush. You don't have to do anything you don't want to, Chloe, I promise. That's all over now."

"I'm sorry."

"You've got nothing to be sorry for, sweetheart. Nothing."

"I have though," Chloe whispers faintly. "You… you have to look at me every day and…"

"Hey, stop. Listen to me. I have never, ever looked at you and been reminded of what happened to me, sweetheart. Never. You're nothing to do with any of that…"

"How can you say that, though?" Chloe protests. "How can you say that when I came out of… of that…"

"Because you're the best thing that ever happened to me," Ange tells her simply. "_That_was… well, that used to be the worst. But you're the best, and that one will never change. I'm not bothered about when or how you were conceived, okay? I couldn't care less, I can't see why that would matter in any other circumstances. Would it? No parent makes a big deal out of how they conceived their child. You're _my _daughter. You turned my life around, I don't even want to think about where I might be now if I hadn't had you."

"You did that, though, Mum. Don't give me all the credit."

"You deserve all the credit. I wouldn't have done it if I hadn't had you to do it all for. I needed something to make me realise I couldn't waste the rest of my life off my face on weed and cheap cider. And… well, there was some stronger stuff, toward the end. I needed a reality check, I needed a reason to sort myself out. You were it. I mean, I never quite managed to quit the smoking completely, but I can live with that. You worked miracles with the rest of it. I wouldn't be where I am now if it wasn't for you."

"See, every time I try to imagine you totally off the rails, at first I think I can't. And then I realise that actually, I completely, totally can."

"Is that an insult?"

"What's the worst?" Chloe asks suddenly.

"Hmm?"

"What's the worst thing that's happened to you?" Chloe asks now, cautiously, delicately curious. "If not that? Sorry. Sorry, I didn't mean to…"

"It's alright. It's alright, I get it."

Because she does.

Ange really does.

Until recently, she would never have believed that anything could possibly be worse, either.

"It was that day," Ange admits, grips Chloe's hand tightly in hers. "The day… the day it happened to you, when I first saw you in the garden and you were just lying there, and I was calling and calling for you and you didn't react and I thought… I thought I'd lost you. That was the worst."

"Mum…"

"Hey, it's alright. You're alright, you're doing absolutely brilliantly, you're safe and you're going to be just fine. I promise. That's all that matters. Right, have a look at the dessert menu, then. There you go."

"I can't eat anything else."

"Yes, you can. We'll get two spoons, you choose what you want. I'll go with whatever. The dessert menu's less hazardous than the mains."

"You've just got terrible taste."

"That's a matter of opinion. Right, what are we having?"

"Matcha cheesecake?" Chloe asks hopefully.

"I brought that one on myself, didn't I? Fine. Fine, I'll brave the matcha cheesecake. Whatever that is. Just don't expect me to join you on your weekend coffee detox. And I don't care how many times you tell me it's good for me."

"Speaking of which. Do you know what I'd really like for my birthday?"

"Your birthday's in May."

"I know, so soon-ish. Do you know what I'd really like?"

"What?"

"For you to quit smoking."

"Oh my god, Chloe."


End file.
